my people grew potatoes,
my hair is lanky and split edged and dishwater
blonde.
My teeth are strong but yellowish
I have little eyes
I am fleshy without muscles
my energy is thin and sharp like gravy
but I crawl into bed as if I were pulling a counter of rubies
over me,
dream past all my lower class barbed wire
walk down the street in a silk glove
try to scrub myself to an aristocratic bone,
and always come back to the faded colors,
lumpy shape;
you wonder why I refuse to type well like my mother,
or iron and mend clothes like my grandmother,
am offended by your boorish father
whose only virtue is that he’s tended a machine faithfully
for 35 years and 
supported
your beautiful mother
her strange children 
he is a ghost of the peasant in me
of ugly linoleum floors
and a starchy diet. And I,
peasant,
have no compassion for the lumps,
the lumpy mashed potatoes
that weren’t beaten with enough butter and milk.
and made so fine
so fine
they were called “Duchess”